♥ Self love and self development are definitely two things I am passionate about. I am not going to say I am a pro at it and that I have it all together, because that is obviously far from the truth, but it is something I am always working on and aim to be better at.

So, first I think it’s important to mention what those are. A lot of people seem to confuse self love with self care. Don’t get me wrong, it’s also nice to have a self-care practice, and I will definitely write a post one mine, but the two are not the same.I would actually say that self-care is a form of self-love, but it’s not self-love in itself.

Self-love is about loving who you truly are and accepting it. It’s getting to know yourself, to look underneath the surface and diving deep. Self-love is a state of appreciation for oneself that grows inside and supports our physical, psychological and spiritual growth. It really is about feeling good, feeling happy and accepting it all. It’s deep and it’s not something that you can just fix in an afternoon over coffee.

Self-care in another hand is about doing little things to feel good on a day to day basis. It’s more about taking care of yourself, like taking a bubble bath at the end of the day or nourishing your body with the right foods! I consider self-care a form of self-love because we can choose to do so and show ourselves love, or chose not to practice any self-care at all. For instance, we can choose to eat right and fill our bodies the right nutrients so that we are healthy and feel great, or we can choose to eat fast food all the time and feel crappy, which later on will most likely lead to poor self-love.

Do you see where I want to get? You need to love yourself first if you truly are considering any type of self-development. Why? Because self-development is all about taking steps to better yourself. With that being said, you can only make the necessary changes if you come from a place of love and acceptance. If you know yourself, your strengths and your bad habits, it will be much easier to embark on a self-development journey because you are doing it for the right reasons. There are so many ways to help you do that. One of my favorite ways to practice self-development is mindfulness. Not only it allows you to be more present, but again in order to do that you have to come from a place where you are already accepting what is around you. It’s truly magical.

Here is an example. Most people want to lose weight, right? And most people that want to lose weight will start these crazy diets and exercise programs in hopes to look a certain way. We’ve probably all been there at some point, I get you! But, the truth is that they are not doing it for the right reasons. In fact, if they accept who they are first, love their bodies and appreciate what they have, they will most likely want to start treating their bodies right and do the right thin!. It’s about fuelling their bodies with the right foods, not diets. It’s about exercising right, not over exercising. It’s about self-love, acceptance and therefore self-development.

See, everything is better when it starts with love. And the greatest gift you can give yourself is self-love ♥

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If you’d like to learn more about topics like self-love, check out my other blog posts. Here is a link to one of my favorite blog posts about Self-confidence with a great free workbook in it! Self-confidence can be tricky, I know so enjoy the free E-book!

Let me know if you feel like you come from a place of self-love or if you practice self-care on a daily basis, I’d be much interested in knowing what you do to feel amazing every single day!